


Good People

by gellavonhamster



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Don't copy to another site, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:29:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24805468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gellavonhamster/pseuds/gellavonhamster
Summary: Monty's indirect involvement in the night at the opera.
Relationships: Bertrand Baudelaire & Montgomery Montgomery
Comments: 6
Kudos: 7





	Good People

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Группа Пропащих Волонтёров](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16039004) by [gellavonhamster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gellavonhamster/pseuds/gellavonhamster). 



Monty Montgomery learned about the deaths of Count and Countess *** somewhere about two in the afternoon, in the lobby of the Biology Faculty of Gerald Durrell University of Natural Science. He didn’t know them personally, and that day he could not even recall their faces when reading an article about their deaths, just as many years later he could not – unfortunately – recall the face of their son, whom he did know personally back in the day and had met as often as not. At the same time, he could remember in detail the moment he heard they were dead – the hum of voices in the vast corridors of the faculty building, sunlight glistening on glass in the frames of photographs and newspaper clippings hanging on the walls, the sound of his own footsteps. He was descending the stairs, almost hopping like a kid because he had just managed to talk a teacher into letting him submit the report a day later, and consequently was in a splendid mood. Few things can compete with the joy that a student experiences when the deadline for a paper that still exists only as a title page gets postponed for a later date. Immersed in happy thoughts, he went down to the ground floor, and was just heading for the exit when he suddenly saw a crowd of students and teachers huddled together and discussing something animatedly. One of the students was holding a widely unfolded newspaper, and several people at once were reading something over his shoulder. 

“Must be a change of government or something,” Monty thought as he approached them. Frankly, the prospect of writing a paper in two days concerned him much more at that time than a hypothetical coup.

“Ah, Montgomery!” shouted one of those reading the paper, Professor Stein of the Herpetology Department. Stein was always shouting: he had hearing problems. Now, on the other hand, a raised voice was more than appropriate, for too many people were talking at once.

“Good afternoon, Professor,” Monty gave him a nod of greeting as he joined the group. Getting closer to the paper was impossible – the crowd was too thick. “What’s the news?”

“A murder, Montgomery! A crime story at its finest; the whole city is going insane! Come read.” At that, Professor grabbed him by the elbow and pushed him into the middle of the crowd, so that Monty found himself right behind the left shoulder of the guy with the newspaper.

He took a look at the page, found the piece everyone was reading, and grew cold.

“Poison darts! With snake venom!” Stein exclaimed. Monty winced as if in pain. The loud noises around him were distracting; he wanted to read carefully, turn each word round in his head, persuade himself it was not what he thought it was. Coincidences do happen sometimes, after all. “And where – at the opera! Right during the performance!” 

“Yeah,” someone to the right of the newspaper chimed in, “straight out of Gaston Leroy.”

“Leroux,” Monty corrected mechanically. He was suddenly overcome with fierce and helpless anger. He stepped back. “I’m sorry, Professor, I really have to go.” 

Walking quickly, even quicker than back when he was urged on by the unwritten report, he headed for the door.

Well then, _La Forza del Destino_. Poison darts. Snake venom.

And his flatmate, who went to the opera yesterday and didn’t come back home.

***

Bertrand asked him to procure the venom about a week ago.

It might have been Thursday, or maybe Friday. Monty was writing a term paper then, one that he could not set about writing earlier because he was busy doing other things, from the tasks assigned to him by VFD to attending the parties organized by other volunteers, which in some cases seemed as important to him, even vital at times. VFD gave him time to deal with the exam period, relieving him from participation in any missions for the nearest future – the pursuance of science was highly valued among their ranks. Many volunteers flaunted some academic degrees, but not many of them got those degrees officially, even if they deserved them objectively. Some Doctors and Masters among them didn’t even hold a certificate of Bachelor’s Degree. Fighting the fires, both literal and figurative, took up a lot of time and energy, leaving virtually none of it for attending the lectures or even distance education. However, the VFD members had connections – Had Connections even, capitalized – owing to which many of them got the opportunity to call themselves professors or academicians, although all their scientific contributions, sometimes absolutely groundbreaking, remained hidden from the general public. 

At the Biology Faculty, VFD Had some Connections as well, and if Monty wished so, he probably could obtain the Master’s or even Doctor’s Degree without much effort, but he had no such wish. He desired recognition and respect from the people outside the organization, desired to make discoveries that he could tell the whole world about – desired for everything to be fair. That was why he had spent the whole previous week in a kind of a time loop. Every day looked like the day before: writing, writing, writing, leafing through the sources frenziedly after another bookmark gets lost, sorting the materials collected in the expedition, drinking gallons of coffee, and occasionally sleeping. And feeding Maturin, of course. As to Monty himself, it was Bertrand who had been feeding him, which was very kind of him, because Monty couldn’t even afford the time to heat some ready-to-cook foods. Bertrand simply used to come into his room, not even knocking anymore so that not to distract him, put a plate of vegetable couscous or spaghetti bolognese or something in front of him, and leave before Monty noticed that plate. The dirty dishes he used to take away in the same manner, unnoticed. Monty had to yell “Thank you!” for the whole house to hear, to which Bertrand yelled back “You owe me!” from his room or from the kitchen. He was joking, and Monty knew that, but still planned at least to stand treat at the pub after the exams were over. 

That morning, Bertrand knocked on the door again – first came in, then knocked. That meant he needed Monty to pay attention to him.

“Hello, hello, hello!” Monty exclaimed, turning on the chair, immediately knocked one his books off the table, and bent to pick it up. “I am listening to you attentively, o dearest neighbour.”

“You’re going to the uni tomorrow, aren’t you?” Bertrand asked.

Monty nodded. “Yeah, to submit this Frankenstein’s monster. Only the bibliography left to do.”

“You’re a hero,” Bertrand praised him. Monty thought so too, in all honesty. “Could you do something for me while you’re at it?”

“Buddy, I would’ve wasted away without you here over the last few days. What exactly do you need?”

“I need,” Bertrand felt for something in the pocket of his trousers, took out some scrap of paper, and gave it to Monty, “a vial of venom of this snake.” 

Monty’s heart lurched. He skimmed the note.

“Oh,” he said. “No problem. There are a couple of excellent specimens of this species at the City Herpetological Centre.”

“I know,” Bertrand replied. “I thought of asking N or S, but I don’t know them well. I wouldn’t like to shoot my mouth off in front of the people I do not trust completely,” he sat down on the edge of Monty’s bed. “Not these days.”

Monty noticed that Bertrand was trying not to meet his eyes.

“I see. Tomorrow it’ll be done.”

“Thank you,” Bertrand smiled slightly, still not looking at Monty. Instead, he was looking at Maturin, the turtle, which was chewing on a salad leaf in its terrarium. The turtle was undoubtedly remarkable, but it wasn’t hard to see that Bertrand was rather looking through it than at it. Sooner or later that was bound to happen, Monty thought. Sooner or later, each volunteer had to do something… like that. Not necessarily related to deathly poisons and what very logically results from their use, but still something that made it difficult to look one’s friends in the eye. Like it was now difficult for Bertrand.

“Who?” Monty asked in a hushed voice. “I’m not asking about the name, I’m asking if you know that person. Or were you just given a description?”

“A description,” Bertrand echoed. He smiled again, wider and brighter, but still somewhat stiffly. “Don’t worry about me. I am not a child, I’ll handle this.” 

***

“And so he did,” Monty thought as he was unlocking the door to his flat.

Bertrand was already home; there was no need to call their acquaintances or go to Kit’s place. When Monty entered, his flatmate was sitting at the kitchen table and rubbing his knuckles on one hand with the thumb of the other. His face was calm, without any trace of either tears or smile. It reminded Monty of the kind of “Closed” sign that people put on the shop doors on Sundays. 

“There you are,” Monty said, peeking into the kitchen. Bertrand gave a start and looked at him.

“Hi,” he said, and offered Monty a faint smile. It didn’t look too convincing. “How did the report thing go?”

“They let me submit it later,” Monty told him. He didn’t know how to ask Bertrand about what was really vexing him, so he asked another question that was, in his opinion, appropriate in any situation. “Would you like some tea?”

“That would be nice, thank you.”

Monty went into the kitchen, took the teapot off the stove, shook it and made sure it was empty, filled it with water, ignited the burner, put the teapot on the stove. Having been in a hurry to check if Bertrand was home, he didn’t have time to take his shoes off, and was now stamping around the kitchen in outdoor shoes. “Gotta sweep the floor later,” he noted to himself. It came with experience – the skill of not forgetting about the dull everyday things like cleaning and cooking while your entire world was in a whirl and threatening to fall apart. 

“I saw the article in the newspaper,” he began as he took teacups from the dish drainer. Bertrand was still sitting at the table in silence, still rubbing his hands absentmindedly. “About the opera.”

“Yeah, I’ve already read it, too.”

“You lied when you told me you didn’t know who the target was, didn’t you? When you asked me to get you the venom.”

“I did,” Bertrand agreed. He leaned back in his chair. It wasn’t hard to see by his eyes that he hadn’t caught even a minute of sleep last night. “Do we have any lemons for tea?”

“Um?.. I think there must be some. Check the fridge. Why did you lie?”

“You had enough problems of your own. And you still do. I didn’t want you to worry about me as well,” Bertrand got up from the table, walked up to the fridge, and took out a bowl containing half a lemon. Having taken a knife and a board, he started cutting the lemon into very neat identical pieces. Everything Bertrand did was neat.

“Yeah, you can want whatever you like,” Monty muttered. The teapot was still taking its time to boil, and just standing empty-handed and discussing the murder committed by his neighbour was unbearable, so he took a cloth and started cleaning the sink aggressively. That was not the first time he procured poisons required by other volunteers. Perhaps he hadn’t killed anyone himself – yet – but he suspected that in a sense he already was partially responsible for a number of deaths. It was scary, it was weighing down on him, it kept him up at night and made him drink and dance and party with a vengeance in the hope of forgetting himself – but that was him, and when it came to Bertrand, it was a hundred times more of a shame. Bertrand was a good person. Bertrand didn’t deserve to be turned into a murderer. Monty was hoping he could express that all in such a way as not to make it seem like his heart is aching not so much for his friend as for his own hurt feelings, but the right words just wouldn’t come. 

“You are one of the best people I know,” he finally began. Bertrand made a strange sound, something between a laugh and a sob. Monty turned and saw that he had already cut the leftover lemon and was now standing with an absent look on his face, clutching the knife. “Don’t hold the knife with the edge toward you. Fucking hell, B,” he raised his voice when Bertrand didn’t react. “Don’t hold the knife with the edge toward you, and put it down anyway!” 

The knife fell on the table with a thud. Bertrand closed his eyes, leaned on the tabletop with both hands, and lowered his head so that Monty couldn’t get a good look at his countenance.

“I keep remembering that he hit O several times when boozed up, back when O was a boy,” he spoke quietly. “He used to drink, you know – not every day, but he used to go on drinking sprees from time to time. O’s taking after him in that respect. I keep thinking back on it as if it makes an excuse for me, but it really doesn’t, you see? And she was innocent – I mean, the rational part of me gets that she wasn’t, I know who she and her husband used to finance and what they used to cover up, but all I can remember is that she was usually nice to O, and to B after she moved to the City too.” Now his voice was taut, his face burning with indignation, his former numbness gone without a trace. “How come this task was assigned to B, of all people? After they had basically accepted her as family?” 

Monty knew, personally and by repute, several Bs among their associates, but this time Bertrand didn’t have to specify who he was talking about. 

“I am angry they made you do this, you are angry they made _her_ …”

“Because she didn’t deserve this,” Bertrand interrupted him. “Because she’s a good person.”

Monty realized that Bertrand was basically repeating word for word what he had been reflecting on earlier himself, and smiled sadly. 

“How willing we are to assure the others vehemently that they are good people,” he spoke. He was completely in agreement with Bertrand about Beatrice. She was not just fun, but also reliable, which was much more important. She looked after her own. She was vivid and loud and incredibly brave and incredibly loving, and Bertrand was right: she did not deserve this. “And never as willing to defend ourselves the same way. Perhaps that is where our hope lies? In our inability to turn a blind eye to our own faults?” 

Bertrand took off his glasses, inelegantly wiped off the tears that had broken out after all, and put the glasses on again.

“Monty,” he said gently, “you’re a good person too, you know that?”

Monty blinked, then blinked again, feeling that soon he might have to wipe off the tears too. Bertrand was one of the best people Monty knew, and he didn’t deserve to be turned into a murderer, and didn’t deserve to labour under such grave delusion about other people either – but the fact that someone still considered him a good person gave Monty confidence that despite all his wrongdoings, he still wasn’t a lost cause. 

He reached out and ruffled Bertrand’s hair.

“Sit down,” he told him. “The tea’s about to be ready.”

**Author's Note:**

> In case there is a Gerald Durrell University somewhere: any resemblance to actual places or events is purely coincidental :D  
> I know that Stephen King's IT was published only in 1986, but if I remember correctly, ATWQ, where Lemony & Co are still young teens, already mentions Danny the Champion of the World by Roald Dahl, which was published in 1975, and time is a construct, so I couldn't resist naming the turtle after the Turtle.


End file.
